Comparison of the Top Five Current Popular Map Services

In addition to the well-known Google Maps and Microsoft's Windows Live Local map services, there are also other popular global mapping services such as Ask.com's Ask Maps, Yahoo!'s Yahoo! Maps, and the long-standing MapQuest. Their common feature is providing map services to users, with Google Maps being the first to open its API, enabling more people to develop applications based on Google Maps. Following this, Microsoft, Yahoo!, and other map service providers also joined in by opening their APIs.

TechCrunch has evaluated and compared these five currently popular map services. According to survey data from March 2006, the most visited map service was not Google Maps, but MapQuest, which had a total of 46.4 million unique visitors. Google Maps and Yahoo! Maps had 19.1 million and 20 million visitors respectively.